Love’s debut should be of more than passing interest

UCLA has its share of noteworthy college basketball veterans.

Junior Darren Collison is a preseason All-American point guard, and junior swingman Josh Shipp might end up with postseason honors if his surgically repaired hips keep up with his confident shot and defensive resolve. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute was newcomer of the year in the Pacific 10 Conference two years ago.

But as the second-ranked Bruins make their regular-season debut tonight against Portland State at Pauley Pavilion, the main attraction is freshman center Kevin Love.

Vikings Coach Ken Bone saw plenty of Love at Lake Oswego High near Portland.

“He plays beyond his years,” Bone said Thursday, shortly after his team arrived in Los Angeles. “He has such a great feel for the game. He’s not just a good scorer and rebounder. What he does better than anybody else is pass the ball. He’ll allow UCLA this year to have a very good push. He’s able to deliver the ball in transition to the right people night in and night out.”

Shipp, who missed Monday’s exhibition win over Chico State with a sprained thumb, proclaimed his thumb fine and his excitement high.

“With a post player like Kevin, that opens up a lot of things for the guards,” Shipp said. “Last year, a lot of teams would key on the guards. I think I’ll get a lot of the same shots I did last year, but with Kevin those shots will be more wide open.”

As for his own reputation, Shipp knows some observers might call him fragile. Over the last two years he has had surgeries on both hips. “That’s a definite concern,” Shipp said. “A lot of people have doubts I am still hurt.”

There are no such doubts about his team’s reputation, though. “We have the tradition and we have our style of basketball that everybody knows about,” Shipp said. “I sense there’s a lot of excitement out there about us.”

Collison suffered a sprained knee in last Friday’s exhibition win over Azusa Pacific and is not expected to play tonight. A day later, junior swingman Mike Roll sustained a foot injury that will keep him out three or four weeks. Senior center Lorenzo Mata-Real has either missed or partially missed almost half of UCLA’s preseason practices. Forward James Keefe returned to practice Thursday for the first time since having shoulder surgery last August.

So these pre-Pac-10 games will be a chance for Coach Ben Howland to tinker.

Sophomore Russell Westbrook will get most of Collison’s point guard minutes. Howland would like to experiment with having 6-10 Love and 6-9 Mata-Real play together at times. Love would play power forward in that configuration, and that isn’t as easy as just stepping to a different spot on the floor.

“I am still a freshman,” Love said. “I still have to learn plays from both positions. When I play the forward spot it does let me step out and shoot a little more. Defensively, I’ll have to learn to guard smaller, quicker guys like [Oregon’s] Malik Hairston and [California’s] Ryan Anderson. But we’ll also have to go against guys like the Lopez twins,” Stanford’s seven-footers. “So we need our big lineup.”

With Love’s arrival and the injury to Roll, junior Alfred Aboya will also need to be versatile.

“Alfred, primarily, the bulk of his minutes last year came as the backup at center to Lorenzo,” Howland said. “He’ll be starting at the four for us initially, and that’s where most of his minutes will come from.

“That means Alfred’s guarding a perimeter player sometimes. He’s good defensively, he plays defense hard and he’s a great screener.”

Howland said that even with the inconsistencies the injuries have caused to his team’s learning curve, one thing is clear:

“With Kevin, everybody notices the difference offensively,” he said. “We’re more efficient. Kevin will draw the double team and he will make how we play offense different.

“UCLA will have the inside presence that we lacked the last two years.”

Steve Lavin will be the ESPN2 analyst for UCLA’s game Monday at Pauley Pavilion against Youngstown State, marking the first time he has broadcast a game at Pauley since his tenure as coach ended with a 10-19 season in 2003.

Lavin said he first returned to Pauley to sit in the stands for a 2005 game against Washington and worked a UCLA game at Arizona but this will be his first time at Pauley “sitting courtside with the headphones on.”

Except for the “extremely difficult” final six months, Lavin said his time at UCLA was “incredibly special.” But he called sitting in the stands surreal, especially when the game got tense.

“After I started breaking out in a cold sweat, I realized it was not me, that I could relax and go get a hot dog.”

Times staff writer Robyn Norwood contributed to this report.

TONIGHT

vs. Portland State, 7:30

Site -- Pauley Pavilion.

Radio -- 570.

Records (2006-07) -- UCLA 30-6; Portland State 19-13.

Update -- Portland State is picked to finish third in the Big Sky Conference behind Weber State and Montana. Guard Lucas Dupree averaged 13.2 points and 3.9 assists last season. This is the first meeting between the teams. The Vikings are 4-36 all-time against Pac-10 teams, twice beating Oregon and twice beating Arizona State.

diane.pucin@latimes.com